By By Kevin Wrigley: This is part 2 of a 5 part series designed to look at great title runs from past champions who held a major title and did not lose it for a significant period of length. They must have held on to that specific title (and can add more titles to there collection, whilst still defending the original one) in one weight class. I base a great title run on factors such as quantity of opponents, quality of opponents, did the opponents deserve the shot and would they go on to achieve much etc.
It looked pretty bad. Wilfredo Gomez was at the time 15-0-1 and had been dropped by WBC Super Bantamweight champ Dong-Kyun-Yum who was 50-2-6 in the first round. Not only was there a massive difference in experience but the knockdown was heavy. An eager Gomez came bounding into it and was dropped pretty hard. Yet he managed to get up, take the lead and show his brutal power in stopping Yum inside 12. Very impressive for a 21 year old all things considered. He was the first guy to stop Yum and Yum never recovered his previous form afterwards. Whilst he had beaten limited competition and was clearly no brilliant champion Yum had beaten the very good Royal Kobayashi.
In defending his WBC title Gomez went on to beat a few novice fighters, something common for an active champion. Examples are 2-0 Saked Petchyindee, 5-9 Julio Hernandez and 8-4-2 Raul Tirado. I think you can safely say these do not hurt his legacy; these opponents are few and far between. Gomez holds the belt from 1977 to 1980, making one unsuccessful foray up in weight along the way. While you may be thinking ‘how can a guy who held a title for 3 years have had such a good reign’ there is one stat that jumps out at you. Not including Yum he beat 17 men. That’s impressive- what’s more impressive is the fact that not one of these guys lasted the distance. 18-0 (18 knockouts) in WBC Super Bantamweight fights. Even outside of these fights he knocked them out- two opponents lost decision to him in his whole career.
A couple of fights after beating Yum Gomez faced the mighty Carlos Zarate, the undefeated knockout specialist who held the WBC Bantamweight belt. Zarate was at the time 52-0 (51 knockouts). In what turned out to be the signature win of Gomez’s career as he bounced Zarate of the floor a total of three times before Carlos’s corner threw in the towel. It’s debatable how good this win was- skeptics point to how Zarate never had much success at 122 but he was such a monster puncher a mere 5 pounds below its hard to ignore. He probably would have been dangerous to any other fighter, but on this night Gomez just would not be denied. An astonishing fact from this is that 77 boxers had been beaten between these two men and 75 had been stopped inside the distance.
Before this fight Gomez beat some solid competition. Former champ Royal Kobayashi was taken out in three with one single left hook. Juan Antonio Lopez, while mostly feasting on poor competition in Mexico, was a tough fighter who took Gomez 7 rounds before succumbing to his power. Leonardo Cruz, whilst not the biggest puncher, later went on to become a WBA Super Bantamweight champion.
Afterwards former title challenger Nestor Jiminez was stopped in 5. Carlos Mendoza (who went on to beat Juan Antonio Lopez) went 10 rounds before being dropped twice. Nicky Perez had a gaudy 40-1 record and a USBA belt but Gomez took him out inside 5. Perez later on went to lose to most of the guys he faced. Derrik Holmes is one of Gomez’s better wins. Just watch the first 3 rounds of that fight to see how solid a fighter he was. Then watch rounds 4 and 5 to see how great Gomez was. His career fizzled out afterwards but he was putting on a great showing considering how no one was troubling Gomez at the time.
Gomez then moved up and lost to the great Salvador Sanchez. He quickly realized his mistake and moved back down, fighting poor opposition. He soon got back to defending his title and stopped Juan Meza inside of 8. Meza is another of his better wins- he was clearly a solid fighter and won a world title two years later. Gomez went on to stop Juan Antonio Lopez again and dramatically stopped Lupe Pintor in the 14th. Pintor went on to win a world title and was Bantam weight champion before the Gomez fight. It was rare you would see competitive Gomez rounds, never mind fights, so this is something special. Excellent fight to watch and a nice finish from the clinical Gomez. This was his last defence as he vacated and then moved up a weight class.
Gomez had a very strong title run, no doubt. But strong enough to warrant a historical run? Debatable but I believe he did. 18-0, 18 knockouts. He was not only good enough to beat every man in front of him but he was good enough to knock them out. Sure many of these opponents had plenty of losses. But there was a lot to do on his part- to be that consistent that you stop opponent after opponent, cutting a swath through a division inside of three years. With only two very good wins (Zarate and Pintor) you could make a case for his title run not being great. But he was so consistent- barring the Pintor fight, (when he was struggling with the weight it seemed) he would dominate opponents. You could literally feel there frustration at not been able to catch Gomez clearly. They literally could not touch him. He was not simply a puncher- the combination of footwork, intricate head movement and a two fisted attack was too much for these title challengers. He could do a bit of everything- his right hand could knock you out just as easily as the left hook. His body punches were devastating but most of all to me it was the footwork. The ability to seamlessly transition from defence to offence using little foot movement was beautiful to watch. Most people agree he is Puerto Rico’s best ever and that is based around this title run. It really is a magnificent run he went on and he deserves all the attention he can get for it.
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